When nothing bad happens, is everything okay? Interpretation of the probability with zero numerator.

Abstract

Making inferences about probabilities when the numerator of the proportion is zero can be somewhat tricky, since we tend to think that the non-occurrence of events is something qualitatively different from the occurrence of one, few or many events, and this is not really so. A numerator equal to zero does not mean that the risk is zero, nor does it prevent us from making inferences about the size of the risk, since we can apply the same statistical principles as to non-zero numerators.